While some have claimed that this is incorrect, and that American citizens would be exempted from the indefinite detention within U.S. borders authorized by the Act, the Committee chairman who co-sponsored the bill – Carl Levin – stated today in Senate debate that it could apply to American citizens.

Levin cited the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants:

“The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“

Under questioning from Rand Paul, co-sponsor John McCain said that Americans suspected of terrorism could be sent to Guantanamo.

You can hear the statements from Levin and McCain on today’s broadcast of KFPA’s Letters and Politics.

The provision would authorize the military to indefinitely detain individuals — including U.S. citizens — without charge or trial.

“If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay,” Rand said in the video. “This should be alarming to everyone watching this proceeding today. Because it puts every single American citizen at risk.”

“There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state — our Constitution, and the checks we put on government power,” he continued. “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”

“Detaining citizens without a court trial is not American. In fact, this alarming arbitrary power is reminiscent of Egypt’s ‘permanent’ Emergency Law authorizing preventive indefinite detention, a law that provoked ordinary Egyptians to tear their country apart last spring and risk their lives to fight.”

The ACLU and over 30 other organizations sent a letter to the Senate asking them to oppose an effort in Congress that threatens to revive the use of torture and other inhumane interrogation techniques. If passed, an amendment introduced by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) to the Defense Authorization bill would roll back torture prevention measures that Congress overwhelmingly approved in the 2005 McCain Anti-Torture Amendment, as well as a 2009 Executive Order on ensuring lawful interrogations. It would also require the administration to create a secret list of approved interrogation techniques in a classified annex to the existing interrogation field manual.

In a related development, republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann renewed her attack on the prohibition of waterboarding and other forms of torture ….

Andrew Sullivan … today noted that the U.S. under Obama imposes even less accountability for abuse of power and war crimes than does Bahrain:

Bahrain’s Sunni government promised “no immunity” for anyone suspected of abuses and said it would propose creating a permanent human rights watchdog commission. “All those who have broken the law or ignored lawful orders and instructions will be held accountable,” said a government statement, which says the report acknowledges that the “systematic practice of mistreatment” ended shortly after martial law was repealed on June 1.

As Andrew put it: “So a Middle East dictatorship has more democratic accountability for abuse of power, including torture, than the US under Obama.” Beyond things like this and the facts set forth in the last paragraph here, perhaps Andrew could use today’s post of his to help clear up the towering mystery he raised yesterday of liberal disenchantment with Obama. That American war criminals are being aggressively shielded from any and all accountability is not an ancillary matter but one of enduring historical significance.

A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature or parliament. There have been many such bodies in history, since senate means the assembly of the eldest and wiser members of the society and ruling class. Thanks.
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Many countries currently have an assembly named a senate, composed of senators who may be elected, appointed, have inherited the title, or gained membership by other methods, depending on the country. Modern senates typically serve to provide a chamber of sober second thought to consider legislation passed by a lower house, whose members are usually elected. Thanks.
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Funny how this bill was rushed thru as tensions in Iran/Syria are boiling over. There has been a second nuclear facility explosion in Iran. Brittain has ordered out all of the Iranian diplomats from the U.K. Hamas has fired rockets into Isreal.Russia has parked an aircraft carrier off of Syria's coast.

Seems that Americas reptillian government is preparing for the "final solution" to thier unified, new world order government. (500 million people, one religion, one currency, one government, & one world leader. . . Lucifer)

I think of what Einstein said, "I know not what weopons will be used in WWIII, but sticks & stones will be used in WWIV". Good luck voting out these Sleestacks. THEY ARE,NT IN CHARGE ! ! ! They do what thier masters tell them & if they dont, . . someone else is placed to win thier seat. Wake the fuck up. Vote 'em out? Are you kidding me.

No more United States Constitution. No more Magna Carta. It's all but over. As Darth Vadar said, " All to easy". One more quote for you & I'm done. "None are more hopelessly enslaved then those who think they are free." John Wolfgang Bahnslev - German poet.

I’ve got a long post mostly written on the debate between two awful positions on the detainee provisions in the Defense Authorization.

But let me make something clear. Both sides have already bought off on one principle: that the Administration can indefinitely detain US citizens.

Dianne Feinstein made this clear in her comments yesterday in the Senate (in which she was reading from a letter SJC and SSCI Democrats wrote).

Section 1031 needs to be reviewed to consider whether it is consistent with the September 18, 2001, authorization for use of military force, especially because it would authorize the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial …..

And yet while in the rest of her speech, DiFi laid out problems she had with sections 1032 (mandating military detention in most cases), 1033 (requiring certification before DOD transfers detainees to a third country), and 1035 (giving DOD precedence in detainee decisions), she made not a peep objecting to (as opposed to raising cautions about) this ability to indefinitely detain American citizens.

In response to DiFi’s speech and the Administration’s veto threat, Carl Levin revealed that the Administration’s complaints about the language authorizing military detention don’t stem from any squeamishness about indefinitely detaining Americans. Indeed, as Levin made clear, the Administration asked that limitations on applying the section to Americans be taken out of the bill.

The committee accepted all of the Administration’s proposed changes to section 1031. As the Administration has acknowledged, the provision does nothing more than codify existing law. Indeed, as revised pursuant to Administration recommendations, the provision expressly “affirms” an authority that already exists. The Supreme Court held in the Hamdi case that existing law authorizes the detention of American citizens under the law of war in the limited circumstances spelled out here, so this is nothing new.

The initial bill reported by the committee included language expressly precluding “the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.” The Administration asked that this language be removed from the bill. [my emphasis]

And given that SASC already voted to support this section by significant margins, it appears clear it has plenty of support.

So make no mistake. As I’ll show in my longer post, there are clear differences between the two sides (though I find both sides problematic). But whether or not the government can indefinitely detain Americans is not one of them.

Update: I took out “militarily,” as 1032 exempts automatic military detention for US citizens.

Section 1031 makes no reference to habeas corpus, and places no limitation on habeas corpus review. Nor could it. Under the Constitution, habeas corpus review is available to any American citizen who is held in military custody, and to any non-citizen who is held in military custody inside the United States.

Even ignoring the case of Jose Padilla, which demonstrates how easily the government can make habeas unavailable to American citizens, there’s another problem with Levin’s assurances.

Habeas was gutted on October 14, when Janice Rogers Brown wrote a Circuit Court opinion holding that in habeas suits, judges must grant official government records thepresumption of regularity.

The habeas case of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif largely focused on one report purporting to show that Latif fought with the Taliban. I suspect the report is an early 2002 CIA report, written during the period when the US was trying to sort through hundreds of detainees turned over (sometimes in exchange for a bounty) by the Pakistanis. The report I suspect is at issue summarizes the stories of at least 9 detainees, four of whom have already been transferred out of US custody. David Tatel’s dissent makes it clear that there were clear inaccuracies in the report, and he describes Judge Henry Kennedy’s judgment that this conditions under which this report was made–in the fog of war, the majority opinion agrees–increased the likelihood that the report was inaccurate. Of note, Latif’s Factual Return reveals the government believed him to be Bangladeshi until March 6, 2002 (see paragraph 4); they blame this misunderstanding on him lying, but seeing as how the language of an interrogation–whether Arabic or Bangladeshi–would either seem to make his Arab identity clear or beset the entire interrogation with language difficulties, it seems likely the misunderstanding came from the problem surrounding his early interrogations.

Beyond that report, the government relied on two things to claim that Latif had been appropriately detained: The claim that his travel facilitator, Ibrahim Alawi, is the same guy as an al Qaeda recruiter, Ibrahim Balawi (usually referred to as Abu Khulud), in spite of the fact that none of the 7 detainees recruited by Balawi have identified Latif. And the observation that Latif’s travel to Afghanistan from Yemen and then out of Afghanistan to Pakistan traveled the same path as that of al Qaeda fighters (here, too, none of the fighters who traveled that same path identified Latif as part of their group).

In other words, the government used one intelligence report of dubious reliability and uncorroborated pattern analysis to argue that Latif had fought with the Taliban and therefore is legally being held at Gitmo.

And in spite of the problem with the report (and therefore the government’s case), Judge Janice Rogers Brown held that unless Judge Kennedy finds Latif so credible as to rebut the government’s argument, he is properly held. More troubling, Rogers Brown held that judges must presume that government evidence gathering–intelligence reports–are accurate as a default.

When the detainee’s challenge is to the evidence-gathering process itself, should a presumption of regularity apply to the official government document that results ? We think the answer is yes.

Rogers Brown is arguing for a presumption of regularity, of course, for the same intelligence community that got us into Iraq on claims of WMD; the report in question almost certainly dates to around the same period that CIA went 6 months without noticing an obvious forgery.

In the battle of two wrong sides, the Democrats lost, with the Udall Amendment failing 37-61. The vote is interesting, first of all, as a read of Obama’s ability to sustain a veto. Right now, the militarists do not have a two-thirds majority to override.

Also of interest are some of the Democrats voting against the Udall Amendment, most notably Sheldon Whitehouse.

Rand Paul and Mark Kirk are the only two Republicans to vote in favor of Udall.

Given the defeat of the Udall Amendment, it looks likely the Defense Authorization will include provisions mandating military detention for most accused terrorists (though the Administration has already doubled down on their veto threat).

So I’d like to look at an aspect of the existing detainee provision language that has gotten little notice: the way it requires the Administration to create a paper trail that would prevent it from ghosting–disappearing–detainees. In many ways, this paper trail aspect of the detainee provisions seems like a justifiable response to the Administration’s treatment of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame.

The Administration unilaterally expanded detention authorities in its treatment of Warsame

As you recall, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame is a Somali alleged to be a member of al-Shabab with ties with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. When the Administration detained Warsame, al-Shabab was not understood to fall under the 2001 AUMF language. The Administration effectively admitted as much, anonymously, after he was captured.

While Mr. Warsame is accused of being a member of the Shabab, which is focused on a parochial insurgency in Somalia, the administration decided he could be lawfully detained as a wartime prisoner under Congress’s authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

But the administration does not consider the United States to be at war with every member of the Shabab, officials said. Rather, the government decided that Mr. Warsame and a handful of other individual Shabab leaders could be made targets or detained because they were integrated with Al Qaeda or its Yemen branch and were said to be looking beyond the internal Somali conflict.

And while he had no problem extending the AUMF to include al-Shabab in the war on terror detention authorities, one of the big SASC champions of these detainee provisions, Lindsey Graham, clearly believed Warsame was not included in existing detention authorities.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview that he would offer amendments to a pending bill that would expand tribunal jurisdiction and declare that the Shabab are covered by the authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda.

So to begin with, Warsame was detained under AUMF authority that one loud-mouthed, hawkish member of the SASC didn’t believe was actually included under it.

And then there’s the way the Administration ghosted Warsame for 2 months.

The US captured Warsame on April 19, then whisked him away to the amphibious assault ship, the Boxer, where he was interrogated by members of the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group (which, remember, includes DOJ, Intelligence, and military members) for two months. Continue reading ?

This goes way back. A verbatim translation of a passage from the Nazi Law on Weapons of 1938 is contained in the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968. We have Senators Kennedy and Dodd to thank for that. Nazi roots run deep in the ruling families of the United States. Prescott Bush was convicted of trading with the enemy, for his business activity with Germany, during the war.

"The salient feature of the era of intellectual acquisitors is that the ruling elite amass wealth but make people believe that such an endeavor is good for society. For instance they cut taxes for themselves while raising taxes for other classes, and yet are able to convince the public that such economic policies are in society's best interest. " ...

"For a while, people suffer through the deceit and exploitation of the reigning class. They maintain their lifestyle by increasingly getting into debt. Acquisitors now have a field day. They make money left and right. They enrich themselves through their control over business, farms and factories, and through lending money to the other classes." ...

"This is the time that creates a group of disgruntled laborers from the former warriors and intellectuals. New leaders emerge from this group. Fed up with the status quo, one day they overthrow the ruling elite with the help of the masses, culminating in a social revolution of workers." - Ravi Batra

and levin is on judicial comm. you'd think he had some understanding of the constitution. when I see soimething like this I assume they are attempting to create terrorists. I man to defend your constitutional risgts is worth the use of violence. then they can decvlare martial law for you standing up for your constitutional right.

McCain -Levin both progressives in good standing and my how they loves them some fascism. No surprise here the progressives in both Dem and Rep parties have been working on this for a long time. We probably have only one election cycle left to put a stop or even slow it down.

Basically, this bill formally abolishes habeus corpus, a civil right dating back to the magna carta. Last time this happened was in the middle of the War of Northern Aggression and Lincoln was rightfully criticised for it.

Talk about a measure at odds with all historic conservative principles. But what do you expect from a democrat-controlled senate. For the first time in my life, sent the ACLU some emoney. Then I renewed my Libertarian party membership.

The administration’s veto threat has nothing to do with protecting civil liberties: indeed, quite the opposite.

The bill would allow the administration to “detain“ anybody, anywhere…

“But the bill requires they do them with a paper trail Congress can audit. In short, it’s a future Fast and Furious scandal, the guaranteed exposure of all of their harebrained undercover operations, waiting to happen.”

According to what Senator Levin reported about the politicking that went on at the secret Senate hearing the administration is clearly NOT concerned about protecting civil liberties:

“The initial bill reported by the committee included language expressly precluding ‘the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.’ The Administration asked that this language be removed from the bill.”

It is all about control and it is time for the American People to Wake up. These people are not acting to protect us. This is the veil to hide their efforts to Centralize Control.

As I read your comment I thought of CathrineAustinFitts.

"You have a system that's not being run to be productive as an economy or healthy as an economy. Its being run to centralize control." - CathrineAustinFitts

She had companies working with HUD; getting welfare moms off the dole. She improved HUD's foreclosed properties auctions, saving the taxpayer $2.5 billion. The software developed opened the bidding process and shined a light on the rigged process and one to the nations largest slumlords; The Harvard Endowment. Long story short: They were not pleased that "ni#%ers with computers" were making them pay market prices or that dependent citizens were given an opportunity to become productive. They, HUD and the DOJ crushed her business and started sweeps of the projects to fill up the newly privatized prisons. Some of the food stamp program's customer service business was handled by one her start-ups. Now those calling for customer service get a JP Morgan employee on the phone; in India. - God Bless The USA!

I did a post featuring an interview on corruption with her. If you're interested in the depth of the Rabbit Hole and the psychopaths within, see the "Dillon Reed and Company: And the Aristocracy of Stock Profits" link at the bottom of: The Looting of America: Happy Labor Day

THE ROOT OF OUR SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, MILITARISTIC WOW'S IS AN EVIL, MONETARY SYSTEM. EVERYTHING ELSE IS A SYMPTOM OR AN ACTION THAT SUPPORTS IT. AT THE HEART OF THIS SYSTEM ARE THE CENTRAL BANKS; THE FED, THOSE WHO CONTROL IT AND THEIR DISHONEST, DEBT BASED MONETARY POLICIES. AS SUCH; LAWS, THE CAPTURE OF GOVERNMENT AND THE SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNTING RULES IS FOR THEIR BENEFIT. AN ACCOUNT OF THE PEOPLE HAS NO PLACE IN IT. INDEED, IF THE PEOPLE WERE ITS PRIMARY CONCERN, THE WORLD WOULD BE MORE FREE, LESS VIOLENT AND MORE PROSPEROUS.

THE PRIVATELY HELD FED IS THE TOP REGULATOR OF ITS TBTF OWNERS AND MEMBER BANKS. IT'S CREATION OF MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR; LOANED, AT INTEREST, TO THE SOVEREIGN AND ITS FRACTIONAL RESERVE SYSTEM IS THE MOST INSIDIOUS OF CRIMINAL PONZIS FOR WHICH ALL ITS FAUX REGULATIONS AND FINANCIAL MISALLOCATIONS FOLLOW.

TO FREE OURSELVES, RESTORE FREE MARKET CAPITALISM AND REESTABLISH OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, WE MUST FIRST ELIMINATE THE MOST PERNICIOUS CORRUPTING FORCE OF ALL.

The are just making it all "legal" now that their FEMA camps are ready for occupancy. I don't know how anyone could not vote for Ron Paul or not be terrified of the other candiates and what's in store for them and their kids. I'm not giving him my vote because of his sound money and taxation ideas. I'm voting for him so my government doesn't start rounding up and torturing it's citizens. Call me crazy but not getting tortured by my government is more important to me than money.

We already have an informal suspension of the First Amendment in this country. The Occupy movement is being smashed as a terrorist organization, and violence is inevitable. 1400 cops for 200 arrests, and most of them are going to be in jail for a while.

----

Next year, it becomes formal as the troops coming home from Iraq get sicced on them as Camp FEMA opens it's loving arms to eat them alive.

The taking down of the 2 towers of the world trade center has to be seen in a masonic context.

It was the "leaving behind" of the two columns JACHIN and BOAZ, the columns each crowned by the world's globe, that flank the entrance of every masonic temple, which in turn represents the Temple of Solomon.

The globes are covered by a net, representing the enslavement of all of mankind.

If you take a look and search for it on the Internet, you will find it.

The leaving behind of the columns marks the entry into a new age of understanding, a rise in the degrees of freemasonry, where you will be told, that Lucifer is the real God, and that its reign is about to commence soon.

You have to understand, it's not me who believes in all this stuff, it's your leaders who do.

And in order to understand them and their illogical and crazy atrocities, you have to delve into masonry.

Your point is one that I rarely see, but you could'nt be more correct. All one has to do is look up Lucifarian/Pagan holy dates, & then cross check the dates with actual events in recent history. Say . . 9/11, invasion of Iraq, 1st day of bombing Libya. It's almost to much to believe. Anyone who says that they're a mason and this info is new to them, . . well what level are you?

The 33rd degree is where one gets this reptillian knowledge, not in the low class of masons. Look for thier pagan holidays & sacred dates, & one will have a good idea of what and when to expect. FUCK NIMROD ! ! ! !

USA, USA, USA bitchez (To the guy who says bitchez at the end of your comments; sorry for stealing your line but I needed it today).

And to the American vets out there. If you trully love your country enough to risk your lives to protect against "foreign terrorists" (notice quotations) why not do the same and get rid of your real and horrible domestic terrrorists. Ie, start by wearing your uniforms and being a line of defence for protestors(I fucking hate hippy protestors more then anyone but you are supposed to be the land of the free for fucks sake) Secondly, convince everyone you know to vote for Ron Paul. Thirdly, demand that your government charge Israel $5000 for every Israeli citizen for the special status and protection that the USA grants them; they all have fucking pools and diamonds while you retards live in pieces of shit housing. I am a Canadian and while visiiting Buffalo I almost puked 6 times because of how shitty America has become; you look like a third world country; went on vacation to Croatia recently and there infrastructure is atleast 10 times better. What the fuck is wrong with you America, you used to be cool.

What part of Croatia? Right near the beach boi....Not trying to say what your saying is not true. As you can tell by my Avatar, I am a Croatian-American and have been there this past summer. I agree, the country is getting much better with its infrastructure. But that is mainly the coast, try going inland where my cousins live, not much there. My point is that Croatia is a tourist paradise and the locals live off of tourism. But that will all end because the squid sucking bankers will be in there next year. I noticed Pro-Euro commercials every five minutes on the TV and tried to explain to some locals that its a bad idea, even with the current events. They dont care. The TV told them it was good and ok, so it shall happen. Croatia will be Greece in 5 years, you'll see. Unfortunately. -- Ljepa Nasa no more.

That may all be true, but I believe we are a very short time (early next year) from a full suspension of the First Amendment (save religion) in a formal sense. We're there informally to begin with, but today's smashing of the LA situation indicates that DHS now has the upper hand -- as anyone would expect it might against a non-violent opposition.

If someone would have told me a mere 6 months ago, let alone 6 years ago, that it would have been possible for Congress to pass legislation which clearly deprives Americans of such fundamental Constitutional RIGHTS and clearly denies them DUE PROCESS, as this legislation absolutely does, I wouldn't have believed them, and would have debated the point.

Well, chalk me up as naive.

Having said that, I will be surprised if this legislation isn't struck down by the courts as clearly unconstitutional, and that even the core conservative majority of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas & Kennedy find unanimity in holding any sort of consensus together in approving what is an extreme attempt to approve such indefinite detainer* and/or tranfer criminal trial procedure from civilian courts to military courts in the case of non-military member defendants (i.e. U.S. Citizens), no matter what the allegations being made are (in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court, although it was a 5-4 decision, found that even a non-U.S. Citizen, alleged to have conspired against the U.S., could not be tried by military commission).

In the suprising event this terrible legislation does find it's way out of conference committee after reconciliation and is passed by Congress, and President Obama does NOT veto it, I would find it difficult to believe it wouldn't be unambiguously struck down by every level of the federal courts as unconstitutional at the first challenge by anyone detained based on its purported authority.

What surprises me is that Levin was a co-sponsor of this legislation, because had it been two republicans who co-sponsored it, I would have merely called that out as election year posturing (they could wait until Obama vetoed the legislation, and then ran ads claiming Obama was "soft on terrorists" or something similarly simplistic, while conveniently ignoring the profound issues pertaining to American Citizenship).

The police state gains traction and will only end when this goverment is removed from power. John McCain is a disgrace as is Carl Levin, this bill is insane, unconsitutional and dangerous for each and every America, Can you imagaine some President making a determination on who you are and based upon his idea, no proof needed, you are ripped from your family and in a detention center in a foreign contry? Time to leave the USSA, this is not the country I was born or raised in it is now a facist, courrpt regime and both parties need to be gone from power. Seems like the only guy who gets it is Ron Paul and of course, the courrpt media ignores him.

SB 1867 has not been passed (as of 11/29) the story is referencing the amendment to kill the provisions raising concerns. What was voted down was the amendment to the bill, the bill is still under consideration in the Senate. You still have time to grab the ear of your congresscritter and scream as loud as you want.